


Fairy Glade

by Casey_Wolfe



Series: Fae AU [1]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Magic, Fae!Dick, Fae!Roe, Fae!Speirs, Fae!Web, Friendship, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 08:34:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8438656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Casey_Wolfe/pseuds/Casey_Wolfe
Summary: The veil between worlds is thin on All Hallow’s Eve, allowing for easy travel to the Fae Realm.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been stressing over my trilogy the past few days and since that’s my NaNoWriMo project I decided to leave it alone and do something fun for today to clear my head. Enjoy!

They were on the Island - an area between the Waal and the Neder Rhine - and had been most of October.  They had been fighting small battles and sending patrols to collect intelligence.  Dick had it on good authority that any day now they’d be going to Mourmelon, France.  It would be good to finally get off the line, take a break.

The men were practically done in and if he were being honest, he needed a break too.  That was why he was here tonight, in this field.  Webster and Roe were with him.  Dick knew they needed this as much as he did.

It was All Hallow’s Eve, the time the veil between worlds was the thinnest.  It was a rather easy time for them to make the trip home.  They wouldn’t be able to stay long, but it would be enough to spend some time there and recharge.  Even the fae could become drained of their power, especially with the situations they found themselves since Normandy.

They were in a dell, a place of fae and magic, older than time itself.  From here it was nothing to open a rip in the veil between realms, allowing them passage.  “Alright,” Dick announced when he was happy they were far enough from the rest of their division, “I’ll stay here to keep an eye out.  If the door is closed when you return, head for the next dell,” he pointed North.  “I’ll meet you there.”

“You should come too,” Web argued once more.  “You need it as much as we do.”

“Someone should stay and watch the doorway.”  Dick offered Web a little smile, placing a hand on his shoulder.  “That should be me.  You need to heal up properly, and you,” he told Roe, “need to refill your stores.”

Web had been hit not all that long ago.  He should have been in a hospital by all accounts, but then fae didn’t heal like humans.  Still, the wound would slow him if he didn’t have a chance to take in the magic of their realm, to let it heal fully.

Roe, on the other hand, had been using a lot of his magic.  It was subtle, here and there, placing healing magic in the bandages he used or taking the edge of pain from someone like a shot of morphine.  It was slowly draining Roe however, and the fae needed the energy of their home realm as much as Web did.

“Go,” Dick encouraged.

Dick held his hand out, needing very little magic to entice a doorway to open given their location and the time of year.  A glowing portal appeared, a whole other world glittering on the other side.  The light from the doorway washed over them, and Dick looked over to his fellow fae as it caused the charm on their wings to fall.

Roe’s wings were the color of the forest, deep greens splashed with bright pops and muted browns.  They shifted in anticipation, the rare smile on his face the only thing giving him away.

In contrast, Web’s wings contained all the colors of the sea, from royal blue to aqua and every shade in between.  They flittered happily, excitement pouring out from him.  Dick couldn’t blame him.  This was the first time the young fae had ventured from their realm.

“Alright, just remember,” Dick started to remind them, only to cut himself off.

“Unseelie,” Roe growled under his breath, turning in the direction Dick’s gaze was pulled to.

“We know you’re there,” Dick called.  “Come out.”

* * *

Nix froze where he crouched behind some brush in the treeline.  He had followed them on a whim, having thought their departure strange.  The more Nix followed, the more worried he became.

Then he had witnessed something impossible, a glowing doorway of some sort appearing in the middle of the field.  What’s more, he watched as the trio seemed to sprout wings.  Nix stared in awe at the light glow that surrounded them, at the ethereal looking wings on Dick’s back.

Now it appeared as though he’d been caught.

Before he could get up the nerve to step into the open, some foliage a little further down from him shifted and none other than Ron Speirs emerged.  “Might wanna dim that,” Ron mentioned casually, nodding towards the strange portal.

With a wave of Dick’s hand, the doorway shrunk into a vertical crooked line that glowed faintly blue, looking like a rip in the air.  “What do you want Ron?”  Dick’s voice was carefully guarded.

As the other man approached, Nix noticed something off about Ron.  In the faint glow of the floating rip, there was the distinct outline of wings.  But they seemed to blend into the darkness.

“I noticed you leave.”  Ron paused.  “And I wasn’t the only one.”  Ron looked over then, right at Nix’s location, and Nix knew he was caught.

He took a deep breath, steeling himself before coming out of hiding.  The look on Dick’s face, well, Nix wasn’t sure he could take being the one to cause Dick any pain.

* * *

It was one thing that Ron had managed to follow them, but Nix as well?  And of  _ all people,  _ it had to be Nix?  Dick sighed, not looking forward to the conversation to come.

Dick turned to his fellow fae and gestured towards the rip.  “You should get going.”

“Commander,” Roe tried to argue.

Dick sent him a look and Roe relented, nudging Web’s shoulder.

The doorway opened again as they stepped up to it.  They passed through with a small sparkle of magic visible in the air.  Dick turned to Ron and mentioned, “You can go too.”

With the better light, Ron’s inky black wings were fully visibly then.  It almost appeared they were made of shadow the way they moved.  As an unseelie fae, Ron’s needs were slightly different to their own, but he would benefit from a trip home nevertheless.

Most thought unseelie were evil, or at the very least dark, but really they were mostly fae that cared nothing for humans.  There were malevolent ones, of course, but they were more than that as a whole.  Still, it had always made Dick curious - and more than a little cautious - that one of the unseelie would choose to join the paratroopers.

“I think not,” Ron dismissed, stepping back for the shadows.  “I’m more than comfortable here.”

Dick glanced to Nix, watching the way the human shifted nervously.  He never recalled Nix ever looking  _ worried  _ before, not even when they were getting ready to jump from a plane for the first time.

“Get back to Dog Company then,” Dick said.  When Ron hesitated to follow the order, Dick raised a brow.  “Unless there was something else you needed.”

Ron just grinned mischievously.  He didn’t argue further, only disappeared back into the darkness.  Dick waited until he felt the other’s power fade.  Granted, Ron could have been shielding - no doubt he had been earlier, allowing himself to be found only when he wanted it to be - but Dick had the feeling he had in fact left, his curiosity sated.

When Dick looked to Nix, the man was gazing at the portal in wonder.  Dick hurriedly closed it down to its partially opened state, the low blue glow enough to see by in the otherwise dark dell.  Nix’s eyes were drawn back to him then, something unreadable in his expression.

“Dick?”

Sighing, Dick replied, “I’m sorry you had to find out like this.”

* * *

Nix let out a broken laugh.  Hell, he didn’t even know what  _ this  _ was that he was finding out.

All he knew was that he was standing in front of some weird glowing thing that two of his friends had just  _ vanished  _ through and that his best friend - and secret crush, damnit - was standing there with  _ wings _ .

When the portal thing had been opened, and with Nix closer, he had been able to make them out better.  They appeared shaped like some butterflies he had seen, long thin tails on the bottom of each wing that came down almost to Dick’s knees.  It also meant Nix could make out the color properly - a deep, metallic-looking blue that faded into silver the closer it got to the edges, which were white as snow.

“Lew?”  Dick’s brows were lowered in concern.  He started to reach out to Nix but he seemed to rethink it and pulled his hand back.

Nix couldn’t stand that hurt look.  He cleared the space between them to stand right in front of Dick.  “What in the world  _ are  _ you?”  He looked Dick over once more.  Damnit, Nix really wanted to feel those wings now that he was close.

“Go ahead.”

Shit, had he said that out loud?  Nix looked up at Dick but it appeared that Dick was just really good at reading him.  No surprise really.

Nix reached out, fingers brushing over one wing.  They felt delicate, like they would fall apart if he touched too hard.  Dick stretched them, pushing the wing closer to Nix in encouragement.  He laid his palm against the wing, a smile stretching across his lips.

“I’m a fae,” Dick finally answered.

Nix’s gaze snapped up to Dick’s.  “You’re a… fairy?  Seriously?”

Dick huffed, rolling his eyes away.  “We prefer  _ fae _ .”

“Right.  Sorry.  Fae.”  Nix clasped his hands behind his back to prevent further exploration.

“Though that includes more than just…” Dick’s nose crinkled, pained to say the word, “fairies.  It covers a multitude of races that live in the Fae Realm.”

“So, like, sprites, pixies, gnomes, elves…  Those are all real?”

Dick smiled.

“Holy shit.”  Nix walked away, spinning on his heels to come back as he asked, “So you’re a fair- fae.”  Dick nodded.  “And Web and Roe?  Speirs?”

“That’s right.”

Nix furrowed his brows.  “What are you guys doing  _ here _ ?”

“We came to help.”  Dick shrugged.  “We wouldn’t be the first fae to offer assistance to humans.  And there are still more of us throughout the Allied armies.”

“Anyone else in Easy?”

“No, just us.”

Nix nodded, trying to digest everything.  “So they, uh…”  He pointed towards the soft-glowing tear next to them.

“They went back to our realm to recharge their energy stores.”

“But you didn’t.”

Dick shrugged.  “I’m alright.”

Nix scoffed.  “I doubt that,” he muttered.  But then, that was Dick for you.

“Really Nix,” he assured softly, putting a hand on Nix’s arm.  “I’m fine.”

“Why did Roe call you Commander?”  It came out of nowhere, even surprising Nix.  It was one of so many questions tumbling around his head at the moment.

“I’m, uh…”  Dick blushed a little, ducking his head as he ran his hand on the back of his neck.  “In our realm I’m a Commander, that’s all.  It slipped out no doubt.”

Nix narrowed his gaze.  “Don’t you lie to me Dick.”  Dick’s eyes widened.  “I understand why you had to keep this from me but I know now.”  Nix lowered his hackles, and his voice.  “So don’t lie to me anymore… okay?”

After a moment, Dick nodded.  “Sorry Lew,” he murmured.

Once again, Dick looked like a kicked puppy and Nix couldn’t have that.  He stepped forward, pulling Dick into a hug.  His arms brushed underneath where Dick’s wings attached to his back, causing Dick to shiver.  Nix was going to ask if it had hurt but Dick’s arms wrapped around him in turn.

“We generally don’t let humans know about us.  For obvious reasons.”  Dick let him go and Nix didn’t miss the fond smile even though Dick looked away.  “There were times though that I really just wanted to tell you the truth.”

“Why?”  It was out of Nix’s mouth before he could stop it.

Dick blushed again.  “Because I…”  Dick shook his head.  “It doesn’t matter.  What I want isn’t really important in the scheme of things.”

“Of course it is,” Nix insisted immediately, snagging Dick’s wrist.  “Especially to me.”

There was that fond smile again.  “You don’t know what you’re saying Lew.  I can’t…”  Dick sighed.  “I have a duty to the fae.  My feelings are secondary.”

Nix frowned, shaking his head in confusion.  “What are you talking about?”

“Winters was a rather tongue-in-cheek cover name.”  Dick paused.  “I’m the Prince of Winter.”

Nix’s eyes widened, his jaw dropping.

Dick just looked slightly embarrassed.  “That’s why Roe called me Commander.  I lead the Winter Court’s warriors.  In that capacity they refer to me as Commander rather than Prince.”  His cheeks flushed even more.  “Though I care little for either title.”

“Holy shit,” Nix breathed.  “I fell in love with a goddamn fairy prince.”

Dick looked at him in surprise and it took a minute for Nix’s brain to catch up.  When he went to apologize, Dick spoke overtop of him, “I love you too Lew.”

Now it was Nix’s turn to be surprised.  “You?  But…” he sputtered.

Dick’s smile only grew, pulling Nix close.  Dick sat them down on the grass, arm around him.  Nix felt the brush of a wing on his back and his nerve-endings were alight with pleasure.

Nix had no idea when exactly it had happened, falling in love with Dick, but it had.  Apparently somewhere along the line, Dick had come to think of him in the same way.

Snuggling against Dick’s side, Nix figured that it didn’t matter so much the  _ when  _ or the  _ how _ .  All that mattered was getting to keep Dick.  That was difficult enough in the world they lived in, or while at war, but Dick being fae certainly added another level of issues to navigate - let alone the fact he was a  _ Prince  _ of all things.

Dick pressed his lips to Nix’s forehead, drawing him away from his turbulent thoughts.  Nix smiled at him in thanks.

They sat there, snuggled against each other, and spoke idly about nothing in particular.  There would be time for further questions later.  What Nix needed the most was simply to have Dick close.  Nix ended up on his back, head in Dick’s lap while the fae played with his hair.

It was some time later that the blue tear rippled, opening into a full portal once again.  Web and Roe stepped through in a glimmer of magic.  Both of them  _ glowed _ , looking much healthier and happier than they had in quite some time.

The doorway closed behind them, leaving nothing behind to know it had been there.  They smiled down at the pair, Web shaking his head.  It was Roe that asked, “Shall we head back sir?”

“I suppose we should.”  Dick sighed, prodding Nix into standing.

Nix grumbled as he did so, arm latching around Dick’s waist immediately, fingers digging into his hip.  “I’m not letting you three trouble-makers out of my sight for awhile.”  He pointed at Dick.  “Especially you.”

“Good luck with that one sir,” Web snarked.

“Watch it Webster,” Nix warned.  “Fae or no, I’ll spank you.”

“Now you’re just making promises.”

Nix barked a laugh, Roe smirked, and Dick groaned.  “I don’t need to hear these things,” Dick complained, prodding Nix into moving.  “I really don’t.”

“Relax Dick.”  Nix pat Dick’s stomach with his free hand.  “We’ll behave.  Right Web?” he called back to the pair that was trailing them, craning his neck around to look.  Nix noticed both of their wings were gone - and so were Dick’s for that matter.

Web smirked.  “Whatever you say Nix.”

Roe rolled his eyes.  “Don’t encourage him.  He comes from a trickster line.”

“Not all of us can be healers y’know,” Web shot back good-naturedly.

As the two sniped back and forth, Nix felt as much as heard Dick chuckle.  He looked over at Dick with a little smile on his face.  Dick looked back, smile growing.

Leaning over, Dick stole a kiss.  It was soft and sure, and over far too quickly for Nix’s liking.  But Dick was smiling and it was enough to take Nix’s breath away.

No, he really had no idea what he’d just gotten himself into in the slightest, however no one was about to hear Nix complain about it.  Fae or no, he loved Dick, and Nix would find a way to keep him.

/End

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I know I left myself open for a sequel (or two). That may very well happen at some point but don't expect much, if anything, from me for the month of November while I'm supposed to be focusing on my novels. Thanks for being understanding.
> 
> (I'll leave you with these tidbits though as a peace offering: The reason Harry knows about dells - a la Bastogne - is cause Kitty is a fae, something Dick wasn't aware of until he asks Harry about it later. Also, Dick may be the Prince of Winter, but Speirs is the Prince of Shadow.)
> 
> Follow me on [Tumblr](http://thedenofcaseywolfe.tumblr.com/).


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